A conservative case for capital punishment
By Steve Farrell
web posted March 21, 2005
Since the dawn of creation the law of God to man has been
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
Today, we refer to this biblical principle in public law as capital
punishment.
Interestingly, regardless of the fact that the death penalty's origin
is found in the Bible, every society, religious or not, has adopted
the death penalty as a suitable way to deal with murder. There is
a good reason for this: The death penalty makes sense.
Think about it. As harsh a sentence as death is, the penalty fits
the crime:
1. Murder is a crime for which the victim cannot come back and
say, "I refuse to press charges." The victim has no voice.
2. Murder is a crime for which no payment by the criminal will
ever fully satisfy the debt incurred. If one robs a store, the
captured thief can pay back the debt, and in fact, under biblical
law (which is better than today's law) would be tasked to work
for the man he robbed until the debt was satisfied seven times the
value of the good stolen. With such a bounteous payback, the
thief is then freed, and by his honorable labor, restored to a
position of trust.
But a murderer can never bring back life. Thus, no matter how
hard he labors, he can never regain society's trust. His victim is
dead and will remain dead.
3. The legitimate role of government involves the protection of
life, liberty and property. Just as the role of the government is to
raise an armed force and rain down deadly force upon a
bloodthirsty invading army, so also the government is duty bound
to inflict death upon the man who chooses to slaughter fellow
citizens in her own backyard.
Few, if any, object to the use of deadly force against an invading
army. Yet those invading soldiers, ordered to fight and likely
whipped up by propaganda to go into battle, are far less
deserving of death than the assailant who has been proven guilty
and convicted in a court of law, by a jury of his peers, of
shedding the innocent blood of his neighbor – and this of his own
free will. Yet we do and must condone war in such situations.
Governments must protect life. This is no less true regarding
individual life.
4. Murder eventually revokes the full array of rights of
citizenship. Some defend the murderer with the claim that he/she,
like anyone else, has certain rights, including the right to life,
which can never be taken away. This is true, prior to conviction.
In this country we assume a person is innocent until proven
guilty.
Therefore, the accused has all the same rights in the legal system
as anyone else: i.e., the right to know the crime for which one is
being charged, the right to a speedy and public trial, the right to
counsel, the right to face one's accusers, the right to trial before a
jury of one's peers, the right against forced self-incrimination, the
right not to be tried twice for the same capital crime (if declared
innocent the first time around), and the right to appeal.
But after all this has taken place and the jury proclaims guilt and
decrees a sentence and the convicted criminal has exhausted all
appeals, his rights as an American citizen ought to end. He freely
chose to break the law and take the life of a fellow citizen; he
must not now be free to avoid the consequences of his heinous
choice. If the jury assigns death, his fate ought to be sealed, his
right to life terminated.
5. The Death Penalty is not, as social activist lawyer Clarence
Darrow once claimed, "an act of revenge"; it is an act of justice.
Liberals and Libertarians have made hay of a few people, once
upon a time, driving by a penitentiary in Michigan City, Ind.,
shouting "Burn, baby, burn!" as a man, who raped and strangled
a mother and drowned each of her three children one by one,
was electrocuted.
As to the "burn, baby, burn," let's address a more important
issue. Even if the account is true, why do we suppose some
people react that way? Could it be they are bearing testimony to
the slayer and to future would-be slayers that murder hurts?
Could it be they are witnessing to the murderer and to those who
take murder lightly that murder is not just a crime against an
individual, but against all those who loved that individual, all
those who depended upon that individual, all those who were
and may yet have been influenced by that individual, and all those
who fear that a similar act might someday befall upon them or
their loved ones?
Certainly, no sane human being pastes on his face a perpetual
smile after a family member or fellow citizen has been brutally
murdered, nor should he.
Consider the counsel of King Arthur to Sir Lancelot in the movie
"First Knight": "A man who doesn't fear anything is a man who
loves nothing." Or with slight adaptation: "A man who has never
felt anger has never known love." Or, as founder Thomas Paine
reflected on the proper reaction to the deaths, tortures and rapes
being inflicted by the British upon America's sons and daughters,
brothers and wives, neighbors and countrymen: "He that feels not
now is dead."
Love is a very good and strong emotion. When the object of that
love is threatened or destroyed, people who possess moral and
emotional sense ought to react with equally strong emotion, if not
outrage. Nor can anyone fully understand such emotions until
they have been there themselves.
And so we wonder, could it be that some activist lawyers and
pundits – who don't believe in Judeo-Christian morality anyway
– are guilty of intentionally confusing revenge with righteous
indignation and true love? One can be angry; one can insist that
stiff penalties including death be administered as remedies,
without being filled with hatred and vengefulness.
Again from Thomas Paine, regarding America's call to arms
against England: "Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the
soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in
view but the good of all …"
Even so, in an imperfect world, a spirit of revenge will exist in the
hearts of some victims. Their bitterness, however, does not
change the nature of the crime, the proof of the murderer's guilt,
nor the necessity for proportional justice. Murder is still murder,
regardless of emotion and the imperfections of victims.
6. The justice of the death penalty is strengthened, not
weakened, by the advent of new technologies such as DNA
testing, which have recently been utilized to more firmly establish
guilt or innocence. It does not logically follow that the death
penalty should be abolished because such evidence "might" have
reversed the fate of some previously put to death. It's too late for
that. What's past is past.
7. Racial profiling and rich/poor lawyer success rates are poor
excuses to eliminate the death penalty, and thus rob justice. That
some people inevitably "get off" because of the skill of a lawyer,
because of celebrity status, or because of political power does
not negate the validity of and necessity for laws and penalties. It
should only motivate us to find a way to make these
"untouchables" accountable before the law as well. We can't
have anarchy.
8. Life imprisonment is a poor, immoral substitute for the death
penalty. Such a plan heaps additional punishment upon victims
by insisting that they pay for the living expenses, the education
expenses, the recreation expenses, the medical expenses of the
man who killed their kin. Such a plan is in fact socialism on
behalf of butchers.
But even worse, life imprisonment unnecessarily puts at risk
prison guards, lesser criminals, survivors, jurists, judges, lawyers,
witnesses, family members, little children ... everyone.
Face it, murderers have been known to kill in prison, order a hit
on a civilian while in prison, and to kill once they get out of
prison. That's why the average murderer on death row has killed
three people before finally being put to death. Further, who can
doubt that their murderous attitudes influence other less violent
prisoners to adopt similar tendencies when they are set free.
Permitting a murderer to live is a paltry example of the so-called
"progress of the law." Putting a man to death the first time around
is better. It saves lives.
9. The swift use of the death penalty – besides eliminating the
possibility of follow-on murders – deters (not eliminates) the
commission of murder in the first place. An ancient prophet
asked: "Now, if there was no law given – if a man murdered he
should die – would he be afraid he would die if he should
murder?"
This question won't go away. To assume and/or manipulate
statistics in order to say that the death penalty does not deter
crime is at best thoughtless, and at worst smacks of ulterior
motives. The desire for rewards and the avoidance of
punishments affect every human being. We spend our entire lives
pursuing the one and avoiding the other, to the degree that the
law and our native common sense and abilities aid us in that
quest. Just look at the free market. Just look at the influence of
religion. Just think about how our driving speed is affected by the
presence of a police officer. To claim that the fear of punishment,
and such a final punishment, does not deter murder is illogical.
Our justice system's failure to swiftly and consistently apply
justice, that is to swiftly and consistently administer the death
penalty is the real deterrence to deterrence.
10. A society that honors the sanctity of life by putting to death
those who are destroyers of life is not murderous but Godly.
Allies of eliminating the death penalty often flout the religious
command "Thou shalt not kill" back in the face of religious folks
who advocate the death penalty. This presumptuous and
fanatical approach to a command of God certainly misses the
mark on the spirit of the command's intent and the command's
supporting doctrines.
The Hebrew translation of the same scripture reads, "Thou shalt
not murder." Murder is defined doctrinally not merely as killing,
but more precisely as "shedding innocent blood." Putting to death
a convicted murderer who has been afforded a fair trial, and who
has exhausted every appeal, is not the shedding of innocent
blood, and thus is not murder. As already cited at the start of this
article, the Father of heaven and earth has also commanded:
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
In this regard, we read also in Holy Writ: "For a commandment I
give, that every man's brother shall preserve the life of man, for in
mine own image have I made man." And then again: "Ye shall
defend your families even unto bloodshed." Likewise, "[defend
your] lands, [your] country, [your] rights, and [your] religion"
even unto death.
Therefore, when "Thou shalt not murder" is placed right smack in
the middle of the big picture – as all religious principles ought to
be – we realize the commandment incorporates the inalienable
right to self-defense and the moral duty to protect the life of
those within our jurisdiction as parents, neighbors, citizens,
and/or officers of the law.
Again, Thomas Paine persuades: "My own line of reasoning is to
myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures
of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to
support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief
breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills
or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in
all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What
signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common
man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done
by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the
root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just
cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and
pardon in the other."
The punishment that common moral sense signified was death to
the villain or to the villains. Paine reminds those who would
shrink at such a high moral duty: "[T]he blood of his children will
curse his cowardice."
11. Finally, I address a question already alluded to but taken to
an even greater extreme by a June 2000 National Review feature
article, "The Problem With the Chair: A Conservative Case
Against Capital Punishment." The question was asked: "If a
democratic society executes criminals with the foreknowledge
that some percentage of them are innocent, are all members of
that society implicitly guilty of murder themselves?"
This off-the-mark, self righteous, and insulting question,
nevertheless, deserves a frank answer. God is more just and
merciful than that. It seems best to trust, as did our forefathers,
that if we do the absolute best we can to uphold the laws of God
and man, He will judge us by the intent of our hearts in those
areas where we may have remotely failed. It is He who
established the law for the death penalty. His law is good. To
abolish His just and compassionate law in defense of criminals
fairly tried and fairly convicted defies common sense, and strikes
a legal blow at the laws and justice of God, whose laws are at
the root of the American judicial system.
NewsMax pundit Steve Farrell is associate professor of political
economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend
Marriage (a project of United Families International), and the
author of the highly praised, inspirational novel, "Dark Rose"
(available at amazon.com). Contact Steve
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com